From February 2007 through December 2011, two Colby College graduates, one a Yankees fan and one a Red Sox fan provided unsolicited rants, second-guessing, insight, and commentary on the Yankees, Red Sox, and all things baseball.
57 months, 1,645 posts, 12,680 comments - Thanks for the memories.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

League Leader in Nerve

David Ortiz has to do one of two things so that he no longer talks when he has a microphone in front of his mouth: Either continue to investigate what caused that positive test in 2003 (obviously a very-involved and emphatic investigation) or check the calendar to remind himself that baseball season starts in 23 days and therefore he should start hitting in 23 (not 83) days.

Popping his mouth off about his $12.5 million contract in an oblique way last Friday was disgusting. The player started throwing the Yankees at Joe McDonald. He has 162 (not 102) games in front of him with the Boston Red Sox and he's already considering where he might be going when he hits free agency next year. What gall. That's disgraceful. This is an ownership group that overruled the baseball operations people to keep your fat, unproductive rear end around for another year at 400% of the market value.

Check the scorecard, Santa Claus, you artificial steroid-using creator of a fraudulent team history.

Vlad Guerrero: One year/$8 million after having a much better season than you last year.Jack Cust: One year/$2.5 million.Jim Thome: One year/$3 million.Hideki Matsui: One year/$4.25 million.Manny Ramirez: One year/$2 million.Johnny Damon: One year/$5.25 million.You: One year/$12.5 million.

And you're crying about it because you didn't get a long-term deal? Maybe in December when none of this other stuff went down yet, you had a case for a long-term deal. But considering you're making more than Cust, Thome, Matsui, and Manny Ramirez combined this year, you should count your lucky stars.

But you're talking about how you only have one year with the Red Sox and next year it might be fun to play for the Yankees. Seriously, go away, dude. I'd rather have Mike Cameron play DH for this team.

2 comments:

I know that this post is a bit redundant if you read HYD everyday, but I was sort of pissed off when I wrote it. At this point, he's been crying about various things for three consecutive baseball seasons. At some point you gotta think he's affecting his overall legacy. Let's think about this.

2003, 2004, 2005, 2006: The guy was Paul Bunyan.

2007: Hit .320, but people were hating on his lack of power. HYD stood up for him big time.

2008: Got hurt. Started crying about the lineup once Manny got traded.

We're now at the point where 55% of his tenure in Boston was absolute positive and 33% of it is absolute negative. Twenty years from now, are we going to remember this guy fondly? Because I think we all know that 13 years after Mo Vaughn's "Stupid Boston Fans" comment, he's still a punch line around here.

It's interesting you should mention Mo Vaughn because he's one of my all-time favorite Sox players. As you look back on those teams from 1993-97, he was really all they had. Clemens was fat and on his way out, Valentin was never as good as Sox fans made him out to be, and Nomar was only there in 1997. Mo was THE guy. And I know that steroids have put him in a different light, but the things that he said, at least for me, aren't deal breakers.

Now, with Ortiz? He's literally one of the 10 greatest players in the history of the Red Sox. Williams, Rice, Yaz, Pedro, Manny, Ortiz, Boggs, Fisk, Cy Young, and maybe Dwight Evans (if you don't like Bobby Doerr or don't think that Babe Ruth should count, or don't care about older players like Tris Speaker). That's really the list right there. And he's on it. I've said it before, but his 2004 postseason ALONE should endear him to Sox fans forever.

Still--your points are THE points when it comes to this discussion. Aging DH's aren't getting long-term deals. Ortiz is the highest paid of the bunch, by a significant margin. He hasn't played well for the first two months each of the past two seasons. He needs to be focused on getting out of the gates early and helping the Sox win games. Had he done that the past two years you can imagine that longer deal would have at least been DISCUSSED this past winter. It wasn't, and it's his fault. Not ownerships.